Pedophiles
by BadaBingxBadaBoom
Summary: Who really knows what hides in the dark trees at night? Apparently, pedophiles, if anyone believes Ella. Which Max doesn't. At all. One-shot, with a little Fax, as always :P


**I would first like to say, PLEASE DON'T HATE ME ALL YOU _Kryptonite _READERS!!! I _am_ working on chappie six. But it hates me and won't co-operate so I can finish. SO, yeah. That's all I've got. In the meantime, satisfy your Max and the Flock craving with this oneshot I've been working on for a _loooooong_ time now.**

**And please don't go anywhere. I know it seems as though I've been dead lately, but I'm not. I've just got a dinosaur teacher who has me writing all the descriptive paragraphs and pre-topic-ed stories and I HATE it. I prefer to be free. . . **

**Okay, that was a little weird.**

**Jusr read on, y'all.**

**Kisses,**

**{--Inky--}**

**P.S And cause I'm this pathetic and have nothing better to do, there's a quote in here from a movie that tons of people have seen. Who can find it? It's so a dare. Fo' sho', ma peeps.**

* * *

"Max?" Someone shook my shoulder. I groaned and rolled over. There was no way that I was getting up now. My internal clock was telling me it wasn't early enough for second watch, which meant it was somewhere around two in the morning. Not time to wake up yet, especially if you're not on the run and cuddled up nicely in a comfy, warm, bed. Yes, you heard me right. _Bed._ The flock and yours truly were crashing at Mom's house for a little while, waiting for Itex to re-group, because we all know that they will, eventually. The joys of being dumped with saving the world from an evil, bloodsucking corporation.

"Max, wake up." Some one shook me again.

"Go away," I mumbled, only it sounded more like "Gmph awh-wumph", mostly 'cause my head was buried under the pillow.

"No. Max, get up! I need your help." I decided right then that the voice was familiar, and definitely too high-pitched to be Fang or Iggy, and Nudge would never be awake at two o' clock in the morning. Even if there was a fire. Okay, maybe then. Maybe.

"Ma-ax!" The girl grabbed my hand and pulled, trying to drag me out of bed. Psh, yeah, go ahead and try. I'm solid as a brick wall when I want to be. Blame the freaky bird-genes.

"Get! Up!" Ella. It was Ella, my wonderful, doomed-to-die-a-painful-death-if-she-doesn't-shut-up-_soon_ sister. I thought about taking a swing at her, but I figured I would probably miss, or actually hit her and break something. She punctuated every word with a tug on my arm.

On my last nerve, I finally caved and bolted upright, already glaring.

"What!"

"Come outside with me." I blinked. Was she on crack?

"It's dark out," I felt compelled to point out. Not exactly great conditions for a jaunty jog down the beach. Ella sighed, like I was missing her point.

"I know," she said.

"Then why do you want to go outside?"

"I lost Total," she admitted, wringing her hands nervously in her lap.

"You lost Total? How did you lose Total? What were you doing with Total in the first place? At two in the morning?" I asked in disbelief. How do you lose a talking dog? Wouldn't you just walk outside, call its name, and wait for it to yell back?

"I was getting a drink of water, okay! And it was really hot in the kitchen, so I opened the door to cool off, and when I turned back around, he was gone! Just disappeared. Come help me look for him."

"Can't you do it yourself? You're what, fifteen now?"

"I'm scared."

"Of the dark? Take a flashlight."

"I'm _not _afraid of the dark," she snapped. O-okay, touchy subject. I let it drop, knowing I would remember that for later ribbing.

"I'm afraid of pedophiles," she continued in a small voice. I couldn`t help it. I laughed, and she glared at me.

"It's not funny! They're scary! Quit laughing, Max! Just wait, they'll target you next!"

"El, I'm pretty sure there are no pedophiles in your backyard."

"Well, I'm not taking any chances. Now, get up and come with me!" she demanded. I sighed and crawled out of bed, following her down the stairs. My bare feet padded softly on the wooden stairs, barely brushing the wood and making hardly any noise from years of trying to be inconspicuous. Walking next to me, Ella's normal steps sounded like an elephants. We slunk past the open doorway of the living room, unsure if anyone was still in there watching TV. Fang, Iggy, and I have weird sleeping patterns, mainly because we have to take watch at disjointed hours in the morning. You never know who could be awake and watching with us. When I opened the door to step out onto the porch, Ella blanched. She paused, eyes wide and staring out into the dark trees.

"Coming?" I glanced back at her, biting her lip in the doorframe, my foot hovering over the first step on the porch. She shook her head, her hair swinging around her face.

"Why not?" I asked, my patience worn extremely thin right about now.

"Pedophiles," Ella whispered, anxiously scanning the edge of the woods for I don't know what. Hulking shadows holding samurai swords, maybe. I sighed, again, and walked back up the steps. I grabbed her slim shoulders, like mine—maybe the thinness runs in the family—and shook her gently.

"Repeat after me: `There are no pedophiles in the trees.` Okay, now you."

"There are no pedophiles in the trees," she chanted, making me smile a tiny bit. Not completely because, hey, the girl woke me up in the ungodly hours of the morning, on my vacation from saving the world, to force me to search for an annoying mutant dog that I don`t even _like_. She should have bothered Fang; he was the reason Angel even _had_ a stupid dog.

"Good. Now let's go." I pulled her along with me and she gave a little squeak and ripped her hand out of mine.

"No way! You go without me. I'll just slow you down," she scrabbled for an excuse. By now, my patience was gone, gone, gone baby. I marched up the steps, took her wrist firmly, and drug her behind me. I was pretty much ready to throw her over my shoulder, cave-man style, by that point.

"Not a chance, sweetheart. _You _let the dumb mutt out. _You _woke me up to help you find it. _You _are going to follow me into these damn woods, and if a pedophile actually does jump out of a bush to molest us, which one _won't_, by the way, _you _are going to go down with me. Capiche? Good. Let's get this show on the road," I fumed. Ella sighed and stopped pulling against my hold once she realized that I wasn't about to let go, and there was no hope in Kentucky she would be able to break my grip.

Silently, we crept into the dark expanse of trees, calling Total's name repeatedly. No answer. The further in we got, the harder Ella started to tremble. I could hear her chanting my little mantra behind me, trying to keep it under her breath. The shadows seemed to slink across our path like warriors, dancing around their enemies. Trees loomed overhead, curving towards each other to make a sort of canopy on branches high above our heads. Somewhere an owl hooted, and Ella jumped about a foot in the air. There was no sign of a little black Scottie anywhere. Just dead leaves and darkness. I was beginning to think that we had stepped out of the real world and stumbled into some creepy horror story where the innocent, unexpecting teens get mugged in the creepy forest by some retarded thief carrying a baseball bat signed by Ricky Mantle and a garbage bag.

Okay, maybe I'm not a screenwriter, but you catch my vibe.

Once we reached a small clearing, I let go of her and sat down on a lonely stump. We had gone pretty far in, and I was starting to feel claustrophobic. The trees closely spaced together weren't helping, and my stomach was practically jumping into my ribcage. Not that Ella could tell this because I'm such an amazing actress.

"We should go back," Ella whispered, not wanting to disturb the quiet serenity. I shivered, and nodded once. It was really cold out, and shorts and a t-shirt aren't very well insulated against the wind.

"We'll look for him in the morning," I agreed, standing up. We pushed back through the overgrown branches, me holding them back for Ella and trying to avoid the twigs when they snapped back into place. Ella was ahead of me, struggling to hop over a fallen log in her bare feet (don't ask why we didn't think to grab shoes on our way out the door) when something grabbed my shoulder. No, scratch that— someone's hand grabbed my shoulder.

The only thing that flashed through my mind was: pedophile, thank to Ella. I screamed and spun around, blindly swinging and landing a solid hit. His hand dropped away and I yelled for Ella to run. She was screaming too, a result of me screaming, and we both took off towards where we thought the house was. Branches smacked me in the face, and I did the best to fend them off and avoid too many scratches on my cheeks. Behind us, the guy was swearing colourfully, including a few new ones I tucked away in my mind for future use. Then, footsteps came after us.

Ella was practically crying, screaming at the top of her lungs. She alternated between "Oh my God, it's a pedophile!" and "I told you, I told you!" The second one was obviously directed at me.

I was breathing evenly, regulating my air so I wouldn't get too winded. I wondered why Ella had to open the stupid door and let the dog out in the first place, and whether anyone had heard us yelling, and how much effort it would take to beat the crap out of the guy behind us, and whether he had some sort of weapon, like a knife or a gun, and—

Hold up. Rewind. This guy was human, and humans are extremely breakable for someone of my calibre strength. I don't want to sound cocky, but I could take this guy out easily.

"Oh brother," I muttered to myself, pushing my legs harder and pulling even with Ella. We burst through the edge of the trees into the dim yellow glow coming from the lights at the house. I stopped, and I reached out to grab a fistful of Ella's shirt as she ran past me. She jerked to a halt, landing on her butt in the grass. She stared incredulously up at me.

"Why are we stopping?" she asked, gasping for breath. Ella was in shape, but she had just full-out sprinted a good half-mile. Even I was slightly out-of-breath, and I was engineered to have insanely high stamina.

"Why are we running away?" Ella gaped at me, clearly not catching on to my point.

"That was a— and you. . .he could have—don't you know anything?!" she exploded. "Self-defence one-oh-one, Max! Always run away if you can!"

"Ella! Not to brag, but I could probably take down any freaky stalker child molester with my eyes closed!"

"Oh yeah," she blinked, as if just remembering my deep, dark, ugly past. I rolled my eyes.

"Let's go back!"

"What?! Are you crazy!"

"Let's go back, " she said again. "You could teach them not to mess with girls all alone in a forest. That would be so cool!"

"Ella," I started in my best calm, listen-to-what-I'm-saying-or-else voice. "We're not going back. Just . . . just get off the ground and go inside. Like, now."

"Whatever," she pouted, dusting the dead grass sticking to her butt. As we walked to the porch, I slung an arm around her shoulders, nervously glanced behind me at the mysterious trees, and smiled at her mischievously.

"Besides, I thought you were deathly afraid of pedophiles."

She turned bright red and glared at me. "If you ever tell anyone that, I will dye your hair hot pink while you sleep. And don't think I won't either. I'm not afraid of you."

"But the pedophiles are."

"Shut up, Max!"

I laughed, and she frowned.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Total's missing," I threw out the next morning, claiming my bird-kid sized portion of bacon before Nudge arrived and ate it all. Angel looked up at me over her tall glass of orange juice, eyes wide.

"Did you go look for him Max?" she asked. My eyes automatically found Ella's from across the table. She quirked an eyebrow, daring me to say something. I fingered my hair, wondering whether it would be worth it to see the look on her face.

"Yeah, but it was dark and we couldn't see much." I rather liked being blond, thank you very much. Ella nodded, like she'd just confirmed something she already knew and went back to reading the paper spread out in front of her. I rolled my eyes.

"Who's we?" Iggy asked, setting down yet another plate heaping with chocolate chip pancakes—my personal favourite— in front of us. We all immediately dug in, bird-kids taking a good half-dozen each and Ella settling for two.

"Ella and me." I tried to sound casual, and not smile, but a smirk found its way through my careful restraints. Thank god Iggy was blind, Gazzy was eating with his face, and Angel was focusing on cutting her pancakes into smaller pieces. At least someone remembers the manners I taught them, I thought, glancing at Gazzy. Somehow, he had gotten pancake in his hair. Don't ask me how, but he did.

We all heard a huge thump, and turned to look at the stairs. Nudge was sprawled out at the foot of the stairs in a gangly heap, eyes wide and sleepy. I sighed, and got up to go help her. I _told _Mom to put her downstairs in the guest bedroom because it takes her a good half-hour to fully wake up, and she still tries to function during that time, but _nooo._ Max doesn't know what she's talking about.

And that was sarcasm people. Heavy, heavy sarcasm.

"Will you take me out to look for him today, Max?" Angel asked once I had sat Nudge down on a chair. I grabbed another plate and piled it with bacon, a few pancakes, and some eggs and set it in front of Nudge, who dug in and shot me a grateful glance. I smiled back, because, hey, it's what I do. I look after them, 24/7.

"Look for whom? Who did we misplace now?" Again, we all snapped our heads around to look at the door, and all we saw was empty air. I shook my head, wondering if I was hearing yet another Voice in my head, but Iggy and Ella looked just as confused as me. Angel squealed, hopped off her chair and ran over to the door. She dropped down to her knees and hugged something. Like we were all connected by a string, Iggy, Ella, and me bent lower on our chairs and looked under the table at the lower half of the door.

Anyone want to take a guess which furry, annoying, supposedly _lost _dog sat there?

Yeah.

I turned to Ella and glared. She shrunk lower in her seat, avoiding my eyes.

"Where were you?" Angel asked Total, and he looked at her funny.

"I got locked in the office yesterday because _somebody_," he threw a hard glance at Nudge, who just kept on eating, "shut the door before I could get out." My glare on Ella hardened.

"You didn't look around the house to see if he was still here?" I exploded, throwing my hands up in the air.

"Hey, I was worried and scared okay!" she defended, sitting up to meet my glare. Neither one of us said anything more; we just sat there glaring at each other. Slowly it turned into a staring contest, both of us melting and trying not to smile. Our gaze was broken by Fang coming downstairs and kicking my chair. It slid a couple inches, overbalanced me.

I righted myself and glowered at him. He stared back. I could tell he was mad at me, and wasn't about to tell me why. I pursed my lips and turned away, giving up for the moment. We really didn't need one of our infamous spats right here, in front of everyone else. Trust me, they could get pretty scary.

He didn't speak as he ate, shocker there, but it wasn't the usual, calm silence. This one was angry, fuming, vexed. A bit uncomfortable, if you ask me. Angel and Total wandered out into the yard. Nudge slumped over onto the table, asleep. No one bothered to move her, even though she had scrambled eggs stuck to her cheek. It would be all too funny to watch her wake up and find them. Iggy and Gazzy disappeared off somewhere, most likely to stock up their unnaturally hidden stash of bombs, against my telling them not to.

Then it was just me and Fang and Ella in the kitchen.

"Who crapped in your corn flakes this morning?" I grilled him, and, as usual, he just ignored me.

Have I ever mentioned how frustrating teenage boys are? Let alone teenage _bird-kid_ boys.

I huffed, picking up my plate and depositing it into the dishwasher, refusing to as much as _look_ at Grumpy McGrumpers scowling over his eggs at the table. Ella followed behind me as I stomped out of the kitchen, heading towards the living room. I flopped own on the couch and she sat beside me, fiddling her thumbs like a little kid who knows he's about to get in deep doo-doo for something. Slowly I turned towards her.

I was calm. No, that's a lie. I was scary-calm, the kind of calm you get right before a storm.

"You didn't check the house?" I was past yelling now. Yelling just gave me a headache. And Max with a headache is _not _pretty; just ask Iggy. He learned the hard way.

"I guess not."

"Very smooth Ella. Way to go."

"Thanks."

**************SC**************

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I caught up to Fang in the hallway, grabbing his arm and pushing his back to the wall so I could stare him down. Or up, really, since he's a couple inches taller than me.

"What's wrong with you today?" I asked, partly meaning his weird, angry demeanour all day, and partly because I had seen him rubbing his jaw throughout the day, as if it hurt.

He shook his head. "Nothing." I could practically _hear _my teeth grind. Not really thinking, as I do so well, I reached up and fisted both hands in his— shocker— black t-shirt so I could yank his face closer to mine and get in a proper glare. He met my eyes, his dark ones definitely less fiery than my own.

"Why are you mad at me?" I asked.

Nothing. Well, he blinked, but I know that it wasn't an _I-can't-believe-you-called-me-out-and-I-forgive-you _blink. Those are generally more profound.

Finally I had to lower my eyes, letting them rest on his cheekbone. That's when I noticed it.

"Holy hot bananas on toast!"

"Holy hot bananas o toast?" Fang looked as if he were about to smile, then he seemed to remember he was mad at me and set his lips into a firm, unhappy line.

My right hand uncurled from the fabric of his shirt and moved up to trace the huge purpling bruise on his jaw. It looked pretty recent, and pretty sore. Now I knew why I was rubbing his jaw.

"What'd you do?" I asked, leaning up on my tiptoes to get a better look, the shape vaguely reminded me of a fist. "Where'd you get that?"

He didn't answer.

"I bet it was Angel, wasn't it? She's getting better. Reminds me more of me every day. Only more mutant-ly endowed."

He raised one eyebrow and shook his head slightly.

"Then who?"

I was prepared for a lot of answers, but not the one he gave.

"You."

Bird-boy in black say _what_?

"Me? I did this to you?"

"Yup."

"When?"

"Last night."

"Was I sleeping or something?" Jeez, getting answers out of this kid is like pulling teeth.

"No, you were awake."

"Oh. But—"Finally, it clicked. "Ooohh. That was you?!"

Fang spread his arms wide, and said, "The one and only."

Then I couldn't help it. I laughed, really hard, and Fang frowned at me for a minute before it caught hold of him too. Pretty soon, we were both laughing, almost uncontrollably.

Ten minutes later, Fang and I found ourselves sitting side by side, backs against the wall, knees drawn up.

"So why were you wandering in the forest anyway?"

He glanced sideways at me, before saying, "Ella tore up the stairs to your room, muttering something about missing Total and woke me up. I was sleeping on the couch. She had me curious, so I figured I could have a little fun and scare you guys."

"So you snuck out behind us, did your little invisible-thing, and circled around."

"And grabbed your shoulder."

"Which is when I decked you in the face and took off?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Nice right hook, by the way."

I laughed, and said, "Sorry. But you did get what was comin' to ya."

"Plus the pleasure of hearing you scream like a little girl."

"Hey, shut up! Ella infected my head with these crazy ideas about pedophiles and it must of subconsciously creeped me out, 'cause I was totally not scared until we ran into you, and it was all instinct."

"Suuurre it was."

"I hate you right now."

Fang playfully smacked me on the shoulder, and I shoved him back. He ruffled my hair, making me screech at him, which, of course, only made him laugh and tell me I was such a girl. So I smacked him on the arm, and we were both laughing, _again_, when a monumental _BOOM! _shook the house's foundation, bringing dust lodged in the cracks of the ceiling out to rain down on us and give my (clean, for once!) hair a gray-ish tint. I looked at Fang, who looked back at me.

"Iggy," we said.

But really, I was thinking, _Way to ruin a perfectly sweet and normal moment, there Iggster._ And I was not thinking it happily, let me tell you.

_You'll get used to it Max._

And there it is; cause every moment isn't perfect without the annoying, fortune-cookie Voice inside my head.

* * *

**That was Fax, if you didn't notice. I was in a cute mode when I wrote the end, so there it is. In my little world, Fang and Max are not the bat-your-eyelashes, innuendos, touchy-all-the-time types. They flirt by their daily war of worlds, and sarcasm. I think its cute.**

**And kudos to Iggy, he's such a wanker. LLC I'm kidding, I love Iggy, he's the greatest. Seriously.**

**So, reveiw and tell me if you think Iggy's a wanker or not. **

**Really, he's right beside me, and he so wants to know!**

**_"What?!"_**

**_"Did we just become best friends?!"_**

**_"Yup!"_**

**_"Do you wanna go do karate in the garage?"_**

**_"Yup!"_**

**LLC, great movie, great movie.**


End file.
